i went straight to my own room and commenced to work afresh on the biliteral cipher. more than ever had i the conviction upon me that the reading of the secret writing would be the first step to the attainment of my wishes regarding marjory. it would have been strange therefore if i had not first attempted the method which she had herself suggested, the reducing the baconian cipher to its lowest elements.
for many hours i laboured at this work, and finally when i had reduced the baconian five symbols to three i felt that i had accomplished all that was possible in that way.[2]
when i had arrived at this result, and had tested its accuracy in working, i felt in a position to experiment with my new knowledge on the old number cipher. first i wrote out my method of reduction as a sort of addendum to the paper which i had prepared for marjory. then i made a key to cipher and one to de-cipher.[3] by this time the night was well on and the grey of early morning was beginning to steal in by the edges of the blinds; i was not sleepy, however; i was too much excited to think of sleep, for the solving of the problem seemed almost within my grasp. excited to a state which almost frightened me by its intensity, i got ready my copy of the number cipher and my newly prepared key. with an effort which took me all my resolution i[114] went on steadily writing its proper letter under each combination without once looking back; for i knew that even should some of the letters be misplaced in the key the chance of recognising the right ones would be largely increased by seeing a considerable number of letters together.
then i glanced over the whole and found that many of the symbols made up letters. with such a basis to work on, the rest was only labour. a few tentative efforts and i had corrected the key to agreement with some of the combinations in the cipher.
i found, however, that only here and there were letters revealed; try how i would, i could not piece out the intervening symbols. at last it occurred to me that there might be in the paper two or more ciphers. on trying to follow out the idea, it became apparent that there were at least a quantity of impeding numbers scattered through the cipher. these might be only put in to baffle pursuit, as i had surmised might be done when i made the cipher; or they might have a more definite purpose. at any rate they hampered my work, so i struck them out as i went along. that i continued till i had exhausted the whole list of numbers in the script.
when i looked back over the letters translated from the cipher thus depleted, i found to my inexpressible joy that the sequence and sense were almost complete. the translation read as follows:
“to read the history of the trust use cipher of fr. bacon. the senses and the figures are less worthy than the trinity b. de e.”
one step more and my work was done. i set the discarded numbers in sequence on another sheet of paper, and found to my intense satisfaction they formed an inner record readable by the same key. the “encloased” words, to use bacon’s phrase, were:
[115]
“treasure cave cliff one and half degree northe of east from outer rock.”
then and then only did i feel tired. the sun was well up but i tumbled into bed and was asleep in a moment.
the gong was sounding for breakfast when i awoke. after breakfast when i resumed my work i set myself to construct a variant of my number key to suit the dotted letters, for my best chance, now that i was on the track was to construct rather than to decipher. after some hard work i at last constructed a cipher on this plan.[4]
i then began therefore to apply my new key to the copy of the cipher in the printed pages.
i worked steadily and completed the whole of the first page, writing down only the answer to those combinations which fitted into my scheme, and leaving all doubtful matters blank. then i laid aside my key, and with a beating heart glanced over the result.
it more than satisfied me, for in the scattered letters though there were many blanks, was manifestly a connected narrative. then i took the blanks and worked at them altering my key to suit the scheme of the original writer, till by slow degrees i had mastered the secret of the cipher construction.
from that hour on, till i had translated the cipher writing from beginning to end i knew no rest that i could avoid. i had to take my meals, and to snatch a few hours of sleep now and again; for the labour of translation was very arduous and slow, and the strain on my eyes was too great to be kept up continuously; with each hour, however, i acquired greater facility in the work. it was the evening of the fourth day, however,[116] before my work was complete. i was then absolute master of the writer’s intent.
all this time i had not heard from marjory, and this alone made excessive work a necessary anodyne. had i not had the long and overwhelming preoccupation to keep my mind from dwelling on the never ending disappointment, i do not know what i should have done. i fully expected a letter by the last post that night. i knew marjory was staying somewhere in the county; it was by that post that we received local letters. none came, however, and that night i spent in making a fair transcript of the whole translation.
the first part of it was in the shape of a letter, and ran as follows:
“my deare sonne, these from the towne of aberdeyne in scotland wherin i lie sick, and before i go on my quest for the fullfillment of my trust. i have written, from time to time during my long sickness, a full narrative of what has been; so that you may know all as though your own ears had heard and your own eyes had seen. all that i have written is to the one end—that you my eldest sonne and the rest of my children, may, should i fail—and i am weak in bodie to so strive—carry on the trust to which i have pledged you as well as myself; so that untill that trust be yielded up complete, neither i nor you nor they are free to any that may clash with the purpose to which our race is henceforth now devoted. but that mine oath may not press overhard on my children, and if need be on their children and their children’s children to the end, it will suffice if one alone at all times shall hold himself or herself pledged to the fullfillment of the trust. to this end i charge herewith all of my blood and race that the eldest sonne of each generation do hold himself pledged[117] to the purpose of the trust, unless some other of the direct lineage do undertake it on his behalf. in default of which, or if such undertaken trust shall fail, then the duty reverteth back and back till one be found whose duty it is by priority of inheritance, unless by some other of the direct lineage the trust be undertaken on his behalf. and be mindful one and all to whom is this sacred duty that secrecy is of its very essence. the great trust was to me in the first instance in that his holiness pope sixtus fifth and my good kinsman known as the spanish cardinal held graciouslly that i was one in whose heart the ancient honour of our dear spain had a place of lodgement so secure that time alone could not efface it nor its continuance in the hearts of my children. to the purpose then of this great trust his holiness hath himself given to me and mine full powers of all kinds so to deal with such circumstances as may arise that the labour which we have undertaken may in all cases be brought to a successful issue. to the which his holiness hath formulated a quittance which shall be co-existent with the trust and which shall purge the natural sin of any to whom in the discharge of the duties of the trust any necessity may arise. but inasmuch as the trust is a secret one and the undue publication of such quittance might call the attention of the curious to its existence, such document is filed in the secret record of the vatican, where, should necessity hereafter arise, it may be found by the holy father who may then occupy the chair of st. peter on application made to him on behalf of any who may so offend against law or the rules of well-being which govern the children of christ. and i charge you, oh! my sonne to ever bear in mind that though there be some strange things in the narrative they are in mine own eyes true[118] in all ways, though it may appear to you that they accord not with what may be said hereafter of these time’s by other men.
“and oh, my sonne, and my children all, take this my last blessing and with it my counsel that ye walk always in faith and righteousness, in honour and in good report, with your duty ever to holy church and to the king in loyal service. farewell! god and the blessed virgin and the saintes and angels watch over you and help you that your duty be done.
“your father in all love,
“bernardino de escoban.”
“these will be brought by a trusty hand, for i fear lest they shall fall into the hands of the english queene, or any of her hereticall surroundings. if it be that you fail at the first in the speedy fullfillment of the trust—as may be, now that the purpose of our great armada hath been checked—it may be well that whoso to whom is the trust may come hither and dwell upon these shores so that he may watch over the purpose of the trust and be at hand for its fullfillment when occasion may serve. but be mindful ever, oh my sonne, that who so guardeth the trust will be ever surrounded by enemies, heathenish and without remorse, whose greed should it ever be awakened to this purpose would be fatal to all which we cherish. dixi.”
following this came:
“narrative of bernardino de escoban, knight of the cross of the holy see and grandee of spain.
in this was set out at full length[5] the history of the great treasure gathered by pope sixtus fifth for the subjugation of england, and which he entrusted to the writer of the narrative who had at his own cost built and[119] manned one of the vessels of the armada the san cristobal flagship of the squadron of the galleons of castile. the pope, wearied by the demands of philip of spain and offended by his claim to appoint bishops under the new domain and further incensed by the incautious insolence of count de olivares the spanish ambassador to rome, has chosen to make this a secret trust and has on the suggestion of the spanish cardinal chosen don bernardino de escoban for the service. in furtherance of his design he has sent him for his new galleon a “figurehead” wrought in silver and gold for his own galley by benvenuto cellini. also he has given him as a souvenir a brooch wrought by the same master-hand, the figurehead wrought in petto. don bernardino gives account of the defeat of the armada and tells how his vessel being crippled and he being fearful of the seizure of the treasure entrusted to him buries it and the coveted figurehead in a water cave at the headland of a bay on the coast of aberdeyne. he has blown up the opening of the cave for safety. in the narrative were certain enlightening phrases such as when the pope says:
“‘to which end i am placing with you a vastness of treasure such as no nation hath ever seen.” which was to be applied to only the advancement of the true faith, and which was in case of failure of the enterprise of the armada to be given to the custody of whatever king should, after the death of sixtus v, sit upon the throne. and again:
“‘the cave was a great one on the south side of the bay with many windings and blind offsets.... ‘the black stone on one hand and the red on the other giving back the blare of the lantern.’”
the memoranda which follow give the future history of the trust:
[120]
“the narrative of my father, the great and good don bernardino de escoban, i have put in the present form for the preservation of the secret. for inasmuch as the chart to which he has alluded is not to be found, though other papers and charts there be, it may be necessary that a branch of our house may live in this country in obedience to the provision of the trust and so must learn to speak the english as though it were the mother tongue. as i was but a youth when my father wrote, so many years have elapsed that death has wrought many changes and the hand that should have carried the message and given me the papers and the chart is no more, lying as is thought beside my father amongst the surges of the skyres. so that only a brief note pointing to the contents of an oaken chest wherein i found them, though incomplete, was all that i had to guide me. the tongue that might have spoken some added words of import was silent for ever
“francisco de escoban.”
“23, october, 1599.”
“the narrative of my grandfather, together with my father’s note have i englished faithfully and put in this secret form for the guidance of those who may follow me, and whose life must be passed in this rigorous clime untill the sacred trust committed to us by pope sixtus the fifth be fullfilled. when on the death of my elder brother, i being but the second son, i was sent to join my father in aberdeyne, i made grave preparation for bearing worthily the burden laid upon us by the trust and so schooled myself in the english that it is now as my mother tongue. then when my father, having completed the building of his castle, set himself to the finding of the cave whereof the secret was lost, in which emprise he, like my grandfather lost his life amongst the waters of the skyres of crudene. ye that may[121] follow me in the trust regard well this secret writing, made for the confusion of the curious but to the preservation of our secret. bear ever in mind that not all that is shows on the surface of even simple words. the cipher of my grandfather devised by fr. bacon now high chancellor of england has many mouths, all of which may speak if there be aught to say.
“bernardino de escoban.”
“4, july, 1620.”
in addition to the cipher narrative i found on close examination that there was a separate cipher running through the marginal notes on the earlier of the printed pages. when translated it ran as follows:
“cave mouthe northe of outer rock one degree and half north of east. reef lies from shore point three and half degrees south of south east.”
[2] see appendix b.
